Airrouter - New Smart Network Iron

You know, I have never written reviews of new hardware before - simply because when some devices fell into my hands, they all were sold in stores long ago, and were present in reviews on numerous IT resources.

However, today I have got a piece of iron in my hands, which I haven’t met yet in RuNet, and I would like to write a brief description of it on Habré (since the piece of iron is really extraordinary). This is an AirRouter WiFi router.

Under the cut - a brief history of the appearance of this device in me, the technical specification, and some interesting things that this device can do. Yes, and I’ll also say the price right away (I myself don’t like to scroll reviews to the bottom) - there is a device in the range of 80-90 dollars, although I suppose that soon the price will drop significantly.

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The reason for the appearance of this device is familiar to me for many: a couple of years ago I bought the first “regular router so that I could distribute the Internet to several computers”. However, then the problems begin: it turns out that that router model simply does not withstand the load from torrent clients running on several computers, connection losses start, departures from IRC, brake on YouTube, problems with Wi-Fi, etc.
Everything has been tried: changes of branded firmware, installation of port forwarding, unsuccessful searches for alternative firmware (when it turned out that the memory on this router is too small to install DD-WRT firmware), etc. Finally, the manufacturer’s official statement - “Our router is not designed for high loads and a large number of connections, as it has too little RAM”.

I decided not to buy the “older” model of any well-known manufacturer (although I was considering options from DLink and Asus), but to purchase a router of a hitherto unknown to me, Ubiquiti, an unknown company. This company was advised to me by a good friend, those. Director of one of the Moscow providers - it is on the equipment of Ubiquiti that some critical nodes of their network (wireless links) are built.
Actually, AirRouter is the first home router of this company.
The first batch of routers appeared in Moscow last weekend, and I immediately ordered the device from the official distributor - and, as the courier said, I am the first person to whom he brought this router :) Therefore, I use the situation to tell about the device.

[On this place there should be photo shoots of taking the router out of the box with an indispensable snapshot of each bag outside, inside, on the side; but let me retreat from the canons of the genre]

So, a brief specification:

Modes: AP, Bridge, Station, StationWDS
Frequency range: 2400-2500 MHz
MHz channel width support: 20MHz / 40MHz
Memory: 32MB SDRAM, 8MB Flash
Network ports: 4 LAN (10/100 Mbps), 1 WAN
OFDM modulation: BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM, 64-QAM DBPSK, DQPSK, CCK
Built-in Wireless: IEEE 802.11b / g / n , 2.4GHz
Data rates:
11n: up to 300Mbps
11g: up to 54Mbps
11b: up to 11Mbps
The range of Wi-Fi : indoors - 200 m, outdoors - 500 m
Data Encryption: WPA, WPA2, AES-CCM & TKIP Encryption, 802.1x, 64/128 / 152bit WEP
Radiation power: up to 400mW
Services: NAT, DNS, DHCP Server, PPP.
Dimensions: 162 X 132 X 30 mm

There is also a USB port for connecting an external antenna, with which the communication range will increase to 20 kilometers per 100 Mbps (if you have, of course, the same antenna on the other side).

Now I will tell about some features of this device.

First, the operating system of the router: there is AirOS . Available management through a practical and intuitive web interface. Here are a couple of screenshots:



There you can also start web / ssh / telnet servers, through special tools you can trace / ping remote servers from this router. And the “Site Survey” menu showed me a list of all nearby wifi networks.

Another interesting thing is the AirView service. Using it (it runs on Java), you can view the radio range, and see which frequencies are most loaded with wi-fi devices of neighbors around the house / porch - then you can manually tune into another band, which naturally will have much less interference. This is how it looks like:



The router is very poorly heated (to the touch is much less than the previous one). Glossy coating; however, unlike laptops, this does not interfere with the router - it can be easily hung on the wall in the room (there are standard grooves for the screws). The front panel has green LAN / WAN / WLAN / Power / Internet indicators. The antenna is internal, which on the one hand is rather strange, but on the other it does not affect the work, and the appearance of the device is rather aesthetic.

This concludes the review - some new features of the device will be recognized as it is used. More detailed technical information can be read / viewed on the website of the manufacturer .

So it goes.

!!! Attention kidalovo !!!: the router was bought in the wifimag store (dot) ru . Six months later, the router began to lose packets until it died completely. The store refused to change or repair the router, saying that they changed the legal entity:
" They talked with the management about this. Now the Bukreev company has closed. The only thing we can help you is to repair it at your expense ."

Therefore, if the reliability of the online store and the absence of problems with the warranty are important to you, I recommend contacting some other store.